Poll: Should belts use energy (and Offshore Pumps etc...)

[DrEthan]

You can play the game without ever touching the Circuit Networks and you won't have much problems.

yes, but they can also make it just an expert mode so that some people wont even have to touch it.

[Hexicube]

If an item's function can be described in 10 words or less, it's in a good state. For instance:

Assembly Machine - Turns items into other items
Furnace - They smelt items
Belts - They move items in a set direction
Inserter - Moves items from one location or container to another

Granted this won't change the explanation with belts, but that's a good rule of thumb for that specific line. If it takes more than 10 words, it might be a little too specialized.

Good point. I might want to remember that for future suggestions because I like that philosophy.

On the other hand probably most concepts can be turned into a summary of 10 words if choosing the right words, but when looking closer into it there is so much more to it. Like in the above description there is no mention of Assemblers requiring energy to continue working. That there are Module Slots, that there are various tiers that allow more ingredients, etc.

The fact that various mentioned machines required power was irrelevant, you didn't need to mention it in order to explain what it does.

That's besides the point, belts do not have an upkeep currently so it's not worth asking if the opposite scenario would occur. It's on you to argue that belts should be changed, not on us to argue that we would have asked for belts to be changed if they were in the state you wanted, and so far I'm not convinced that the change would be at all beneficial.

Since you're into quotes, how about "If it isn't broke, don't fix it."? The belt functionality is a core mechanic of the game, if them not using power was actually badly immersion breaking I would expect a lot more people to be complaining about it, therefore it isn't nearly as bad as you're making it sound.

Well it has been suggested several times by several people. I am not the first one and most definitely I won't be the last one. I didn't start the trend, I just give my opinion on the topic started by others.

And my opinion is that for some people it makes sense to have the upkeep and what I am arguing for is that they should be given the opportunity to play this way without forcing it on the people who don't want to play this way, which is why I am for an expert difficulty setting that increases immersion/complexity for the ones who like that kind of thing, and I think there may be enough people who would like to give it at least a try before condemning it as "no it breaks gameplay, so nobody should have the fun".

The recent disaster with the Loader proposal from the Devs changed my opinion on new/improved features radically. Only after realizing how stubborn I have been myself when arguing against them I realized that many people nowadays condemn every addition/change to the game because they want the game to stay exactly as it is because they have become used to how things are. Any deviation from that and anarchy rules the developer forum. Ever since I am like "yeah why not, give it a try" and if it doesn't work out too well it can either be removed again (which would be a waste) or made an optional feature (which is a good alternative).

My main issue with the proposed change is that it has the potential to massively impact the UPS of the game for larger bases with no gameplay benefit (from my view). I get a degraded experience from this change.


I'm actually wanting to see the loader implemented, just not in the current form. The proposed addition would dwarf inserters in a number of places, such as (un)loading stations for trains and some assembler recipes (copper cable), and I feel that an addition needs to either offer interesting choices or be supplementary. There's no interesting choices with the current iteration, and it's not supplementary.

A lot of people are in the same boat (judging by the poll I made), the loader either needs to have limitations or a running cost. There's a number of interesting solutions to this problem; make it require lubricant, make it only work with storage containers, make it an in-line container, or make it only load into things. The notable thing is that the number of people who flat-out don't want the loader isn't too large.

[Yinan]

yes, but they can also make it just an expert mode so that some people wont even have to touch it.

Yes, but seeing that you don't have to use them at all and their existance has no impact whatsoever on those who don't need it, there is no need to put it into a special mode.

Changing belts on the other hand...

[Lemlin]

My suggestion is to have something similiar as we have with the inserters.
One (slow) belt type which doesn´t need electricity and higher tiers of belts with the need of electricity.

[Hexicube]

My suggestion is to have something similiar as we have with the inserters.
One (slow) belt type which doesn´t need electricity and higher tiers of belts with the need of electricity.

The basic inserter runs on coal, it's not free.

[Koub]

And why not make a mod to have a proof of concept, and see if it makes sense to add this mechanic in the core game ? I take as an example RSO, which is massively used, and is, in my opinion, the root cause of the futur overhaul in map generation the devs have talked about.

[bobingabout]

Belts requiring energy are an odd topic... realism would suggest that they should. but Electricity? Well, am I one of only few who actually bothers to set up a full automated coal powered mining operation before building an electric grid? Would this still work with powered belts?

offshore pumps though, I think should require some sort of energy, the existing one probably some sort of burner power, then a MK2 that uses electricity.

One of the items in my mod is supposed to be an underground water bore. It is powered by Electricity, and it works. It's also a bit of a cheat device because it lets you get water anywhere, so I'm thinking of changing how it works. The problem is, to first get electricity, you need steam power, which needs water.

[DrEthan]

And why not make a mod to have a proof of concept, and see if it makes sense to add this mechanic in the core game ? I take as an example RSO, which is massively used, and is, in my opinion, the root cause of the future overhaul in map generation the devs have talked about.

Ya but one of us would need to have code access.

[MeduSalem]

And why not make a mod to have a proof of concept, and see if it makes sense to add this mechanic in the core game ?

If I would know how to mod/code I would do it, or at least give it a try. But sadly I don't or at least not to the extend I would need to perform such a task. Copy & Pasting a recipe and changing some ingredient values is one thing, but adding an upkeep to a belt system is another.

[Hexicube]

And why not make a mod to have a proof of concept, and see if it makes sense to add this mechanic in the core game ? I take as an example RSO, which is massively used, and is, in my opinion, the root cause of the futur overhaul in map generation the devs have talked about.

I'm not sure it would even be possible to make belts need energy in the way that is proposed (one belt per chain needs to be in the grid).

[DrEthan]

What i want to know is why are people freaking out about this and voting no when we could please both parties and vote it to be an optional feature. If you do not like this feature do not activate the option, but if you do want the feature activate the option.

[MeduSalem]

What i want to know is why are people freaking out about this and voting no when we could please both parties and vote it to be an optional feature. If you do not like this feature do not activate the option, but if you do want the feature activate the option.

It is because nowadays many people are like "It wouldn't be fun for me, so nobody else should have the fun either." ... it's called egoism.


... and of course there are the people who will eventually come up with arguments like "but development time is limited so we should invest it better", which is reasonable, but nobody really being objective enough to be able to judge WHAT is really the most important to the community at a certain point so that development time could be spend accordingly.

That would be actually the job of a real community manager... looking through the forum and taking notes of which topics/themes are recurring or the most interesting to the community, and eventually create a weekly/monthly poll of certain topics that is presented to the majority of the playerbase to vote on INGAME after startup in a non-intrusive way (so nobody can overlook it but doesn't outright feel forced to vote on anything)... so that way the community manager would get a much better representation of opinions of majority of the playerbase. Forum polls alone are rarely representive because only a small fraction of the playerbase will ever go there... and it's normally always the same bunch of people who get into conversations.

Then take the results of these ingame polls and bring them to the development team to speak about the issues so they can decide on if it is worth the development effort or not and reason to the community why it is not worth it or why something is a particular way or another. Like a monthly interview where the own community manager sits down with the dev team to speak about current issues from a community perspective.

The Friday Facts are a nice development journal and keeps people up-to-date about many things the devs are currently working on, but it rarely brings up some of the issues people are having heated arguments about in the balancing/ideas section, some of which would be interesting to know what majority of the playerbase actually thinks about it.

[Koub]

It is because nowadays many people are like "It wouldn't be fun for me, so nobody else should have the fun either." ... it's called egoism.

... and of course there are the people who will eventually come up with arguments like "but development time is limited so we should invest it better", which is reasonable, but nobody really being objective enough to be able to judge WHAT is really the most important to the community at a certain point so that development time could be spend accordingly.

Whatever you're trying to achieve, I, who perfectly fit in these two lines, will never feel I'm egoist, and will never feel guilty of trying to hinder other's pleasure. Yes I voted "No", and my argument seems to my eyes as valid as yours must seem to you.

If I wanted, for realism and richness of the game, the ability to get down to atomic level to arrange all the stuff, would all the people who would say "no" be egoist ? It reminds me of an old cartoon that says "You are free to do whatever you want... Providing it's within the limits of what I allow you to do". There are many features in the game I'd happily trade for others - but I can't. At least, let me express myself about a change I don't feel the game needs, in the hope the spared time will be invested in something I feel the game needs.

In the end, the devs have all the freedom to choose to implement - or not to implement what you actively militate to see added as a feature. And I say actively because you weight a total of 8 posts out of the 32 on this topic at the moment I'm writing. I understand you want this feature very much, like a great lot of very much. But overloading the discussion with your opinion won't make it more valid.
Please, accept others' opinions have the same right to be valid as yours.

[BlakeMW]

I actually think offshore pump should require power, but it should pump at 10% without power (lets say it draws power from the water current) and have high priority (like laser turrets) so you don't get bootstrapping problems.

[MalcolmCooks]

Well, am I one of only few who actually bothers to set up a full automated coal powered mining operation before building an electric grid? Would this still work with powered belts?

Yeah see this is the biggest problem with the idea. Belts need to function before you have electricity, and imo having some new burner entity that you connect to the belt that would drive it is a very clunky solution and would be difficult to achieve. You would have to calculate its power use based on the number of connected belts because if you didn't then you haven't solved the "magic belt problem". You know because why would it be more realistic to say that you need 100 watts (for example) to power one belt, or a hundred belts, or a thousand belts, than to say you need zero watts.
Sure I think a lot of players try to get electricity as soon as possible, but the game shouldn't force you to play that way.

[Hexicube]

What i want to know is why are people freaking out about this and voting no when we could please both parties and vote it to be an optional feature. If you do not like this feature do not activate the option, but if you do want the feature activate the option.

You can only push the game so far, expensive operations like checking if a belt is connected take a toll (think about bots placing or removing hundreds of belts from a large blueprint). That same time could have been spent elsewhere, such as on biter AI, or moving all the items on belts, but instead it was spent on a practically invisible feature that you're not going to notice.

It's all well and dandy stating that an optional feature is not going to have an effect on my experience, but that's never actually true. Any feature, optional or otherwise, will sometimes impact gameplay and always impacts development time (even if you fully out-source it, time is spent merging and fixing bugs).

There's also several other issues stemming from actual implementation:
- Should belt merging stop the flow of power since it's visibly a different belt?
- What about splitters, should they have extra power draw?
- How would you balance faster belts, since the only force to match is minimal friction?
- Should a belt continue moving after a power cut, since it has inertia (which causes a metric ton of calculations since items add to inertia)?

The last one in particular is the issue, because if belts require power I'd wonder why they immediately stop when they lose power. If the expectation for realism is set that high, I'd be less immersed than I am currently if that expectation is not always met, which would be the case with belts instantly stopping. This also only accounts for belts, there's several other issues with realism that would break me out of it should such a change come into play, all because of a set expectation.

Immersion is a house of cards, you lose one piece and it's gone. In this case we don't have a big fancy house, we have a nice shack that currently holds well, and I'd rather not ruin it by adding another layer.

[VeaynontheReal]

I feel like a problem that a lot of games tend to have is they limit options for gameplay. For example, if you made this available in something similar to a "hardcore mode", then others who wanted to see this feature but not have the difficulty/other features related to said hardcore mode on would be turned away. I recommend having a highly customizable difficulty settings menu, or maybe integrated it into the World Generation menu. Just leave as many options as possible. More options = wider reach without turning away hardcore players. No harm no foul, right?

edit: after looking at Hex's post, I can see maybe a little harm in my ingenious, totally original idea... But I suppose that in the end it will really be up to the Devs' and some of our smarter forum members to figure it out. I'll be keeping my eyes on this post though. In the mean time, good luck to everyone, and I hope we can work something out!

[The Phoenixian]

Alright, I haven't seen any ways to make this work, so I'll detail the best way I can think of to make belts use energy... and why I still don't think it's a good idea.

---------------------

A large portion of the problem with belts drawing power is that if the belts themselves draw power, then it's a problem for burner setups, where no electricity is available but doesn't make much difference for normal setups unless every belt must be powered. Which would be tedious and make a burner solution impossible.

Instead what could be done is adding a motor to belts. Now, allowing them to be placed in any odd position would add nothing so, in the interest of making a puzzle, they can be setup to only supply power when attached to the fronts and backs of belts and each motor can power up to a certain number of belts optimally. In the interest of ease for burner setups, burner belts motors might be able to automatically load coal into themselves from the belt.

For power supply, belts can be grouped into networks, like electricity and solar panels are, to make the power calculations. If each each motor adds 210 arbitrary units of power a bit and each belt consumes 1 unit (with red and blue consuming 2 and 3) then it's a simple central calculation of belts vs power supply. And with the way power works in the game, storage can be depleted slowly if power runs out, causing a stutter to a halt rather than an instant stop.

So: Faster belts consume more power and need more power suppliers for them, players are encouraged to have splitting setups and superfluous belt ends to add power, trains become more economical than long straight belts, burners motors can be used with power plants to avoid going into a death spiral that could be a concern with belts needing power.

And... it's still pretty boring. In fact it's almost busywork. 99% of the time you're just slapping down one more object per every 70/100/200 belts. In theory it's meant for advanced users but it doesn't add anything for beyond a bit of verisimilitude.

Even if you make it so splitters don't transfer power between their two halves, making the ability to redistribute power limited, all you add in is a limit to how long your belts can be and an exploit to get around that. Sidestepping your main arteries every 70 tiles with a splitter in order to apply power is not an interesting puzzle element and just plain makes things like belt balancers an application of additional tedium.

Likewise you don't really get anything out of this as far as making trains more economical goes. A half kilometer long belt can still be made and in fact requires only 3 motors. Doesn't matter if you remove splitter power transmission or not, it can still be made to work.

So yeah, even as interesting as I can make it it's just tedium. Unless there's a solution more interesting than this, I don't see the point.

[bobucles]

What if going above the "default" yellow speed used power? Now belts always have a minimum speed, but to get the higher tier stuff rolling you need a power network that is already pretty well established at that tier.

The only individual piece that probably should use power is the splitter. It's just a damn useful thing.

[DrEthan]

It is because nowadays many people are like "It wouldn't be fun for me, so nobody else should have the fun either." ... it's called egoism.

... and of course there are the people who will eventually come up with arguments like "but development time is limited so we should invest it better", which is reasonable, but nobody really being objective enough to be able to judge WHAT is really the most important to the community at a certain point so that development time could be spend accordingly.

Whatever you're trying to achieve, I, who perfectly fit in these two lines, will never feel I'm egoist, and will never feel guilty of trying to hinder other's pleasure. Yes I voted "No", and my argument seems to my eyes as valid as yours must seem to you.

If I wanted, for realism and richness of the game, the ability to get down to atomic level to arrange all the stuff, would all the people who would say "no" be egoist ? It reminds me of an old cartoon that says "You are free to do whatever you want... Providing it's within the limits of what I allow you to do". There are many features in the game I'd happily trade for others - but I can't. At least, let me express myself about a change I don't feel the game needs, in the hope the spared time will be invested in something I feel the game needs.

In the end, the devs have all the freedom to choose to implement - or not to implement what you actively militate to see added as a feature. And I say actively because you weight a total of 8 posts out of the 32 on this topic at the moment I'm writing. I understand you want this feature very much, like a great lot of very much. But overloading the discussion with your opinion won't make it more valid.
Please, accept others' opinions have the same right to be valid as yours.

i am fine with you opinion but if its optional why should anyone else who doesn't want this in game activate it/care?